


Life is a matter of flesh

by sunglooming



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Haikyuu and life as a metaphor, Minor Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26566006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunglooming/pseuds/sunglooming
Summary: Sometimes taking the first step is harder than facing the whole path.Sometimes It's just a matter of flesh.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Life is a matter of flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Just a little disclaimer that this is my first complete fic ever, and it's been years since the last time I wrote something... english is also not my first language so I'm not promising any type of super good content :')  
> I'm actually veryy anxious to post this, especially because i vomited it all during a bad anxiety moment I went through, but I hope it can be enjoyable for you.
> 
> Want to say a big thank you to [Ams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hqarmystrings/pseuds/Hqarmystrings) and [Krys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hqkrys/works) for being my betas!

* * *

Birds.

Strong bird, weak bird.

Alive bird, dead bird.

In a brood of chicks, a crime is committed even before life itself is created. In the cruelty of nature, there is no room for dreams, hopes and empathy. Each choice is made in cold blood with the single purpose of allowing yourself to breathe a few seconds longer, to be able to admire the sunrise once again.

More times than you can count on one hand, a mother is forced to snatch the life of one of her children to give their siblings a new day. If fate has not given you good health, a big and strong body, you are not given the benefit of doubt or any type of opportunity. Every door will be slammed on your face even before you have even tried to walk through it.

In a brood of chicks the first door to be barred from your access is the very one of life.

Hinata Shoyo was not born a bird.

His fate was, hilariously, even worse.

Isn't it natural to want someone to make the hard choices for us instead of rolling up our sleeves, tying our shoes, pointing out a finger and saying "this one"? 

Each of us aspires to self-sufficiency; we all dream of that day when spitting from our lungs with pride “I can do it by myself” can be every day.

The child doesn’t want to shake his mother's hand as he crosses the street: “I know the colors, Mum, it’s green, Mum, I walk by myself, Mum”. Maybe those who drive don't know the colors. Maybe they don’t care about colors.

The teenager would love to attend that party. She wants to go dancing to the disco. To burst her eardrums and pretend for one night that she has breathed in this world for a few hours longer than reality.

“Dad, I won’t get drunk, Dad they are my friends, Dad, I' won’t get home late." 

No one ever leaves the disco early.

The just-turned-18 years old-girl wants to answer the question about road crossings, because she knows the answer about road crossings.

The just-turned-18 years old-girl wants to get her hands on a hot steering wheel to spend a day at the beach with her friends without having to pay a train ticket, ignoring the future price of gasoline.

We all aspire to one thing: freedom.

We are all scared of achieving the same single thing: freedom.

We aspire to grow but we are afraid to grow, we don't know how to grow.

We are not chicks.

Most of us have been given the benefit of doubt.

The first door that had to be crossed was supported and opened wide for us by others, we were able to walk through it with an ocean of stars in our eyes without the use of our own strength.

We took the first step toward a bottomless sea, toward a shoal of fish, that in reality are sharks.

The world--and life--is an endless ocean, whose blue mixes with the blurred edges of the sky, or perhaps a mountain, high, majestic and imposing, whose top we are not allowed to admire.

What is the first step to take?

For some, learning to swim. Push one arm after the other against the friction of the water, trying not to flounder so as not to drown. For others, trying desperately to reach that handhold embedded in the stone, grab it, and get one centimeter closer to the top.

Hinata Shoyo decided to take a boat and dive from three meters high into the bottomless blue.

To parachute himself from the stratosphere confident of landing on the shining head of the mountain. But the boat was actually a wooden board eaten by woodworms, and the parachute--though opened wide enough to slow down the impact with the dirt ground--was little more than a yellowed sheet.

Hinata Shoyo tried to cling to the wooden board, gasping as water filled his lungs and squeezing the fabric between his knuckles. But when he widened his eyes again, he found his feet buried in the sand softly watered by the foam of the ocean, blades of grass and damp earth infiltrated between his bare fingers, mouth cracked by sea salt and elbows and knees scratched by debris and pebbles.

Not knowing how to react, all he could do was observe.

The universe ran before his eyes, without deigning to look behind itself. The world that Hinata Shoyo dreamed to be a part of was right in front of his nose and bare feet, so close but at the same time so far away.

Hinata stretched out his arm in front of himself, gnashing all 32 teeth and spitting to the sky that one day he will run right into that world. No. That he will reach its end, walk balancing on its borders, go back, and then he will run forward again, passing the gates of Hercules all the way upside down.

Hinata Shoyo promised that one day he would put his hands on the ground, feet to the sky, blood rushing to his head, and take a step forward.

It is said that those who are ignorant know the key to happiness. Ignoring the evils and adversities of the world can really deceive you and make you think that everything is fine. That around you there isn’t a fire that tries to devour you slowly. And maybe for a while you will be able to run forward hopping between one fantasy and another, but you will inevitably stumble. You will scratch your hands and begin to bleed. And when the walls of the dollhouse you hide in to survive collapse at your feet, devastation will be presented to you. Blood-curdling screams will sneak between your desires; you will pale, you will gasp, little sobs will fall from your quivering lips. It will be too late when you realize that you cannot breathe, smoke would have already crept into your lungs; wrapped in darkness you will be buried in soot and forever forgotten.

As long as you are ignorant, you keep running and dreaming of touching the stars, neglecting the process of reaching such an ambitious and distant place.

If Hinata was born a chick, he would be the little one of the brood, too weak to be able to survive alone in such a raw and merciless world. But this world is so rich in its variety, it shines day and night with a unique beauty, and among the many lives residing on Earth, Hinata was born human. Perhaps a bird would have spared a miserable life to the little one by killing it at birth, but among humans Hinata is thrown at the mercy of the wind at his first cry. Lady Luck may be on your side, surrounding you with rich soil on which you can grow and thrive, or she may turn her back on you and leave you skinned on hard concrete. Whatever your fate is, it is up to you to keep yourself on your legs and cultivate the soil given to you.

Hinata, like a small chick, fell from the nest, weak and premature, onto the damaged and poorly maintained concrete of a narrow alley. In a flutter of crumpled feathers, he realized that he had been abandoned into the world, with no one standing on his side during his path that's life. But Hinata, who was starving because his empty stomach was too big for his tiny body, ignored the loneliness around himself and in his heart, smiled in his ignorance and stood up on his legs and began to jump forward awkwardly, without giving a second glance to the amount of land he was covering.

What he wanted to do was to reach that faint light that shone at the end of that dark street. Hinata wanted to live it with all his heart, he wanted to feel its warmth on his palms and bask in it, blend with it. Before he was even thrown onto that street, even before he was surrounded by darkness and loneliness, when he blinked for the first time all he saw was light.

And he fell in love.

He fell in love so much that he continued to leap forward, for a mere hundred meters that for him were worth a hundred thousand. And when he finally walked out of the alley, with one hand raised in front of his face to not be blinded by those rays of light, a magnificent sight was set in front of him.

It was a gleaming valley, with slopes and hills, bathed in sunlight. But more than the valley, what caught Hinata's eyes was a group of people dressed in black who stood out in that much green.

He was no longer alone.

Among the remaining puffs of the morning breeze that rustled the blades of grass and the aggressive sunlight, there were shadows--silhouettes of many people abandoned in the world just like Hinata.

If the boy was born a chick, and if by some miracle he was spared from so-called natural selection, he would have constantly wandered with the mere weight of his breath to fight loneliness.

But the boy was born human and humans walk together.

Perhaps they hate each other, insult each other, grab and harm each other, divide, abandon, betray and hurt each other so much that one cannot imagine how it is possible to conceive so much pain. But never, never they will be able to perpetually advance with only their own strength. They would be swept away by the wind, those thin wooden sticks on which they held themselves in balance, burned by ignorance.

The sun lays prominently among the languid turquoise of the sky. Having already dried up the morning it pounded aggressively on the boy's shoulders. But Hinata of that heat only noticed that his shadow was large and confident, he inhaled strongly until he burned flames from his lungs and waged a battle already lost with his own shape.

He ran as far as his flesh allowed him, heedless of the ground beneath his feet, neglecting everything around him with one single goal shining in his irises.

_I don't want to be alone anymore._

He ran until his shadow at first overbearing became smaller, until it blended and disappeared between those of the other people.

Hinata thought that if he was born a chick, he might have been devoured. He would have been seen weak and thrown out without any consideration of how much a small soul like his could give.

But Hinata was born in different flesh and with stuffed bones, he knows he can't soar by himself. He knows the chills of solitude, goosebumps at the thought that his dreams will remain a mere fantasy if he has no one by his side. 

He knew, so he acted.

He shouts his wishes to the wind to grab the trust of the group.

Among the various curious and doubtful looks that turned to his slender figure, the one that captured his attention was a silhouette that seemed at first sight grumpy, closed on itself and hidden from the others. Hinata approached him, curious like the devil, noticing how he was lost watching the clouds painted in heaven. The figure burned with so much determination that it made Hinata wince. But when he turned gracefully, looking at him authoritatively, Hinata realized that person had noticed how he was still trembling from the loneliness he was trying to escape from and probably looked miserable to his eyes.

Despite this, Hinata was not intimidated, he pierced that glacial gaze that was resting on him and the other, at his attitude, did not say a word. But he moved closer with a sure-footed step and firmly grabbed his arm and then dragged Hinata with him, darting from behind the crowd that had just begun to move and blocked his view. He pushed him forward and beside himself, starting to run towards a destination- a destination that was still blurry to Hinata.

_People are interesting for their diversity_ , he thought, glancing at his new partner who still had his palm anchored to his arm. Humans are different from each other but we all share the same main features, but inside, inside there is a myriad of parallel realities, mysterious, frightening and unexplored. And Hinata, who was born small, staring at the sky, desired to shine with his own light and all the only way he knew to not being obscured by others was screaming. Pushing himself onto his toes and spitting out words of promises and statements, he hoped to convince those in front of him that he was not just a name, but a face and he was there.

The one who answered him, however, was the one who--at first glance--could not seem more than just an empty shadow that should be avoided and ignored- but in reality with a look, he could understand Hinata more than anyone else. And there, as he dragged Hinata by his side with no obstacle to obscure his view, in his silence he offered him the world.

The sun was still roaring high in the sky as Hinata began to look around without a clear goal. He was unsure where he wanted to go, he only knew he wanted to continue, to go further, but his destination was still unknown to him. He lifted his nose to the sky, squinting in the blinding light, let his gaze wander among the turquoise, the foamy clouds and then linger on the silhouettes of birds that hovered free and powerful in the air, capable of flying over any wall that stood in front of them.

_It should be nice to float freely in the air_ , he muttered in his mind, _to be able to roam with the clouds around your head like only a giant could_. But Hinata was small. So small that the only thing he was allowed to do was admire, fascinated by a power and a freedom he could never make his own.

But Hinata was ignorant and thought that if he kept running without ever stopping and without looking where he was going, or what ground he was standing on, his legs would grow and his neck would stretch and he would walk in that blue with the birds.

He laughed at the sky and at the world ignoring everything around him, intertwining the fingers of that flock of people who had welcomed him without ulterior motives, and then he screamed and laughed again.

But while his eyes had already swallowed the sun, the ground under his feet began to shake and crumble, and when it split it dragged that dreamy little body with it, and Hinata slammed his teeth on the ground, scratching his chin and knees. He rolled off the path, the grass useless in cushioning the blow, swallowing dirt. And all the others fell dragged by him, getting off the path they were running on.

There are moments like these when instead of thinking rationally all Hinata could do was curse himself between his teeth, clenching his nails so hard on his palms that they gushed with blood.

And when he looked up at his mate he was greeted by silence again, but no silence was equal and this one was mortifying. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I pushed you in front of everyone. I’m sorry because I thought I knew how to hold you in my hands._

But those excuses only made him boil more in his fragile bones, and he preferred to scream in vain to the ground instead of looking up at the sky again.

And it was at that moment that a slight gust of wind, strangely warm and pleasant, slipped between the two, ruffling their locks of hair. It was as if it, gently and confidently, pushed them from below, enticing them to stand once again. Not violent enough to push them on their feet, but strong enough to challenge them, as if it was asking: “Do you have the strength to lift your faces to the sun, or would you rather lay there, weak, on the ground?”

They got up.

They took the path again.

They started running again.

Both standing on their own legs, no longer dragged by the other.

Hinata started running again as hungry as ever.

He wanted to do more.

He had to do more.

He kept running, defying the wind, he kept running, burning the ground, he kept running while his bowels begged starving and oxygen scratched his lungs trying to get in.

He kept running, wanting to do more and more, wanting to look more and more, no longer just up, but down, behind him, to the sides and in front. And while he was busy trying to do all that, he didn't notice that the one who had always been by his side had overtaken him by a step.

The one who first paid him real attention, the one who had helped him to run in front of everyone to admire the endless horizon, overtook him by two steps.

And it was in that moment when Hinata realized with terror that while he was starving to look at everything around him _he_ had always just looked forward.

Three steps.

If the first door to cross in life is kept open by others, the second, third, fourth and so on are iron walls, and you will find all of humanity to support them to prevent you from passing through.

What to do is up to you. Climb to the top and climb over? Knocking, hoping someone decides to let you pass? Being lucky enough to find an access left wide open that will allow you to proceed smoothly and faster than ever? Or roll up your sleeves, grab a pickaxe, squeeze your knuckles to its handle and begin to strike, groove after groove, towards a gap of light created only thanks to your effort? Or you can decide to stay, stop and observe. Sit cross-legged, squeezing yourself into a fetal position to protect you from your fears. From doubts, uncertainties, decisions to make.

Many say that having a dream, or even a little curiosity about something is enough to take you far, but often it’s not realized how difficult is to take that first step toward what you want. To an outsider’s eye it may seem such a little thing, if not ridiculous, but if you don't have that necessary willpower, that microscopic step is actually an invisible footprint that is trying to crush you by choking you, and the only way you can react back is to curl up even more in yourself.

It is not enough to dream of freedom to be able to obtain it, we must fight to find the strength necessary to make us walk towards our dreams. If you are strong enough you will lift your face hidden between your knees, you will open your arms to the wind, and if even with terrible fatigue, you will stand up on those wobbly legs and take a single step. A step that may mean nothing to everyone but means everything to you.

If you can't find that strength, if you don't try to reach it, what remains will be the nest formed by your slender body, left up to the mercy of time, while others will walk beside you, overtake you, run towards a successful future, towards their dreams. Without ever stopping. By ignoring you, you will be nothing more than a dark silhouette in a black sea.

One hundred steps.

This was exactly how Hinata felt while of his mate only a shadow was left that slipped away from his fingers stretched forward in a vain attempt to grab him and reach him, to not be overtaken and left behind forgotten.

But the more the boy leaned forward, ignoring all that had been dear to him a few moments ago, the more the hungry mud tangled around his legs, trying to swallow him and take him with it.

Even though, from the second he took his first breath, Hinata had never stopped running, at that moment he found it hard even to just push one leg in front of the other. Having never stopped, everything that had been unconsciously ignored by him returned to bite him like a pincer, while all he could do was look as that shadow reduced to a dot in the white of the horizon.

And wrapped in that fetal position, in a bubble of uncertainties, you will have to make an important decision: do you prefer nurturing your fears or rather, your hopes?

With time running against him, Hinata crawled on all fours, paying attention to every single movement he made, and slowly reached a firmer, more stable ground, on which he stood back on his feet.

And he began to run again, leaving behind the valley he had traveled through until then.

And when he stopped he did so because in front of him the whole world stood. It was a mountain, of which top contained the secrets never revealed to anyone and the desires dreamed by everyone, with that pungent air that gave him goosebumps, the song of many birds, souls wandering in its woods, slipped uninvited in his ears. It was a pristine blue sea in which the sky was reflected, the fresh water that seeped through his toes, erasing the footprints left in his passage, and the myriad of fish, of lives, wallowing without a clear purpose in it, wandering back and forth in search of the right destination, the right answer.

_What should I do?_

Hinata thought that from the moment he was kissed by the sun and life, that question chained itself to his torso without ever leaving him, wrapping itself so violently that it left marks on his skin.

He stopped. And he observed.

The people who walked with him to that place slowly parted and each one of them took their own different path, leaving Hinata with nothing but his doubts and a handful of dreams to conquer.

He has always observed. At first as an empty head and a thousand wishes in his eyes, looking at what shone above him. Then as a hungry crow without a prey, observing everything that moved around him, then in shame, hands on the ground and staring at the dirt, and finally determined, looking to his dream that was waiting for him at the end of the world, at the finish and starting lines.

He looked at anything that was in front of him. He fed on everything he found edible to learn, to grow and think, to take his own path.

And he tried. He tried, made follies, and failed. Falling back to the ground and skinning a knee, realizing he couldn't swim, he nearly drowned.

He failed and stopped and tried to think again.

_To err is human_ , he thought. _I am a human being so I can fail. No--I have failed and I will fail_ , he whispered this time, a voice that crept out of his lips, bitten raw by his hunger.

_You have to learn from your mistakes_ , he added, scolding himself.

He continued to observe.

And watched as the sun finally retreated into sleep, painting the sky with streaks of gold and blood red.

And watched as the sea reflected in that same sky, endlessly scattered waves of stars.

And even if the horizon that he had always admired from the moment he set foot out of that narrow and cramped alley disappeared into darkness, everything was fine.

It was all right because the sun would wake up again, burning the earth with its heat, and the night would not wrest from Hinata everything he had learned and made his own until then.

And when that sun rose fearless the next morning, Hinata tried another time.

That bubble of fears and insecurities was still well gripped around his body, he did not know what the outcome of his decisions would be. He did not know if he would ever reach the end of that immense world that loomed before his eyes or if he would collapse on the way, eaten by sharks. His only certainty was that black dot distinguishable in that pool of white horizon, the shadow of his mate, his partner, his dream. Dream that he wanted to reach, bite with his teeth and savor as best as he could.

He didn’t know what that climb of doubts preserved for him, it partly terrified him, but he was sure that waiting for an answer to his problems was futile and way more terrifying. He had no intention of staying curled up in front of that door that blocked out the light of the world by being consumed by uncertainties. So he smiled so hard that the sun melted and pointed a finger at the sky and shouted promises. Gritting his teeth stubbornly, he ran with open arms towards that oppressive door. A door that many would have avoided or stopped to admire in fear, a door that he broke through, with a baggage of failures and successes on his shoulders, solid ground under his feet and a small dot of pitch-black dreams that merged in the clouds. Hinata wanted to make his whole world pitch-black.

He wanted to blend with that black, where the warm light of small fireflies shone around him, floating in the darkness, like stardust sinking in ink.

And he wanted to dance in that ink, shine in that ink, he was no longer a moon illuminated by others, he was the sun and he shone by himself.

No longer just a name, floating words, but a face with a name and he was there.

And that was his dream he would have conquered.

And he took a step forward.

And perhaps, perhaps, Hinata was not born a bird.

Perhaps Hinata has been unlucky to be born lucky.

But Hinata had wings too, he just had to learn how to spread them and fly.

**Author's Note:**

> So... that's it. I hope it hasn't been super confusing. And a disclaimer, the mountain and the ocean represent the same thing, life/the world, but people have different views of them so I decided to represent them in two different ways.
> 
> Come chat about Haikyuu & Hinata with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/vitaaeris) if you want!


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